Purchase of shoes

One major lesson that has taken me a while to learn in Africa is never believe I can get something done within what I consider a “normal” period of time.

Shopping in Nairobi for 89 pairs of shoes for all the Challenge Farm children began on Wednesday around 2:30 after a yummy lunch outside of town. I had requested our social worker to meet me to help out because I knew this wasn’t going to be easy but I thought I could get the job done in one day. I hopped on a bus heading to downtown Nairobi to meet Emma. An hour and 15 minutes later we met. It only took me 15 minutes to get there, so for an hour I was standing on a street corner being stared at by all the Africans getting off of work for the day. When Emma arrived, we got on another bus and headed to the store. I had no clue where we were going,but I soon figured out we were on the same road leading to the airport which is quite far away. The shops along the street in this area are primarily warehouses. We found the warehouse and began negotiating with the owner. After at least 30 minutes of waiting and discussing sizes, styles, and amounts, he informed me that the shoes wouldn't be ready for a week. A week! Oh and he explained that he needed 40% of the money up front in order to begin production. No problem there since the money had been wired from Dallas to my account that morning. The catch was he didn’t take credit cards or checks and was about to close for the day. I ran next door to a hotel to pull out money from an ATM, but the bank only allows a certain amount pulled out each day.

Nothing was settled so Emma and I got back on a bus headed to town right in the middle of rush hour traffic. Nairobi looks like rush hour all day long with parking lots as streets so the only difference is how fast the parking lots move. It can take 2 hours to move the distance that should take 10 minutes. We’d been on a bus headed to town about 15 minutes when the driver pulled over and everyone got out. We were way outside of town at this point. Apparently that bus didn’t go to town or didn’t want to today, so here I was walking down what would be equivillant to I635 in Dallas and I was moving faster than the cars. I was a novel sight for all those Africans in their cars who have certainly never seen a white person walking down Mombasa Rd. I was chuckling at this point, not frusterated at all. I was laughing to myself about what I set out to do for the day and what I had accomplished which was nothing, yet here I was outside of downtown Nairobi walking on the street during rush hour. What a different story this would have been had it taken place in the US. I would be sitting comfortably in my air conditioned car filled with shoes by this point and probably still sitting in rush hour traffic but it might move slightly faster.

After walking on the road for a while, another bus pulled up and had some space so we hopped on and begin that slow crawl into town. I didn’t keep track of time this go-around and my patience was slowly dwindling so I got out and looked for a cab to take me home.

The next day (Thursday) I set out in search of soccer cleats and to get the rest of the cash for the down-payment to begin the making of 89 pairs of school shoes. I had no idea how many cleats I was going to be able to afford because I had not priced them yet. I went to a major sports store in downtown Nairobi to which I was given the name of an employee who could help me with a discount. Within a matter of an hour and a half I had picked out cleats, found out that I could get the schools' shoes from this company, picked out the school shoes, got a discount on the total of 130 shoes I was buying, paid in full, and gave an address for them to be shipped. Amazing! Truly amazing! I was able to buy all 89 pairs of school shoes and have enough money left over to buy the entire boys' and girls' soccer teams brand new Puma cleats. I will be able to buy some shin guards with the remaining money. What a blessing for these kids, some of whom have never had a new pair of shoes.

Friday I took a bus back to Kitale which takes about 8 hours and is bumpier than the Six Flags' roller coaster The Texas Giant. It is one exhausting trip. The shoes arrived at Challenge Farm Saturday evening and I will pass them out on Monday morning.

A very special thanks goes to The Dallas Shelton Upper Elementary and Middle School which raised this money. Thank you so much! I will post pictures as soon as I’ve passed out the shoes.